8 Things To Consider Before You Get Started With Digital Marketing

How to get started with Digital Marketing is the first thing strikes our mind, when we think if shaping a career in Digital Marketing. Here are 8 things to consider before you kickoff.

​1) Do you have that zeal to learn ?

First question to ask yourself. You are reading this article right now, this shows your serious interest in taking up digital marketing as a career choice. Congratulations.

Eagerness and enthusiasm to learn DM is the first prerequisite to get started with digital marketing. To pursue digital marketing as a career, you must be passionate about marketing first and then digital marketing. If you are coming from traditional sales and marketing background, digital marketing will be a most wanted skill. If you are a fresher from technology background or other related ones, digital marketing will be a new area for you to explore. Digital marketing field is constantly evolving. Your eagerness to learn will help you keep pace and make you stand out among competition.

“Qualifications to enter Digital Marketing” is a frequently asked question on Quora . Anyone can learn digital marketing; it’s not restricted to have some basic qualifications.. But with a suitable degree your chances of getting hired increases. But remember, you can start on your own consulting firm or an agency anytime during your career. So if you have not completed your graduation or related degrees for any reason, don’t worry much.

2) You must stay Updated

Staying updated with tools and trends are very important. You will remain relevant in the industry. Ex- Google keeps on releasing new SEO guidelines, social media trends change really fast. You must read articles or join active digital marketing forums/groups. You can subscribe to various free guides on YouTube from Google, Hubspot, Neil Patel

3) Networking is important

It’s important to network with people within the field so that you get new ideas, listen to successful people, get inspired and get exposed to successful case studies. Attend digital marketing related meetups within your city. Try attending various events like Social Media week, GMASA, content marketing summits etc . These events are one stop platform to stay updated, upgraded and network. Try it out.

4) Work on individual projects to begin with

Freelancing opportunities are handful in this field. You can work on small projects for your friends and families or work on individual projects from Fiverr, Upworks, freelancer.in. You can even approach budding/start-up digital marketing agencies to work for them on contractual basis. This will sharpen your knowledge and experience `

5) Get serious about your personal brand

In this digital age everything is traceable and being a digital marketer it is highly expected from you. Have your own success matrices online. For instance if you want to become an SEO specialist, have proof on how you helped any business improve SERP rankings, similarly for social media. Many candidates remain untrue specifically in this segment, but remember there are free tools available for anyone to check. So please be careful towards your claims.

Blogging is another great way of developing your personal brand. Create your own blogging site (Use WordPress if you don’t own a website), guest blog or express yourself on LinkedIn (very powerful platform).

6) Are you ready to think different and experiment?

Whether you want to optimize a new campaign or a new customer acquisition strategy, you must experiment with ideas, tools & tactics to identify the best performing channel with a high ROI. When you run any digital marketing campaign there’s a lot of variable parameters which affect performance. As a smart marketer, you must test and optimize the vital parameters.

Never be afraid to think different. People with out of box ideas are on high demand in digital marketing.

7) Make analytics your best buddy

Yes, you heard it right. Digital marketing strategies and analytics, both must go hand in hand. Analytics is very vital for any of your activities, it empowers you take right decisions. You just need logical thinking initially to get started, you will expand your knowledge with experience of course. Use platforms like Google Analytics. You will fall in love with the curves (graphs I mean 🙂 )

If you work on mobile apps, analytics is the oxygen for you. Platforms like Localytics and AppsFlyer help a lot here (from personal experience) .

8) Stay ahead with Digital Marketing Certification

Being a certified digital marketer, keeps you ahead of competition. Try getting certified with Google fundamentals, Google Adwords , Google Analytics & Hubspot certification to begin with. These are free exams , but suggest you to prepare before appearing.